


Eternity

by Mustachioedmoose



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, jack the ripper just completely gutted me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-01-02 01:40:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21153476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mustachioedmoose/pseuds/Mustachioedmoose
Summary: Jacob Frye is in love. Love is a power that can transcend all obstacles, if one believes enough. At least that's what everyone wants to believe. The Impetuous Brother is in love. A story from his beginnings until his end.





	1. Interrupted

**Author's Note:**

> More nonsense. I started writing this years ago, but like usual, never had the courage to post. But today I'm full of feelings and that makes me impulsive, so here we go.

Jacob Frye was in love.

It was an odd thing to say. He’d been so preoccupied over the past months with manning the Rooks to pay much attention to finding a mate. But truth be told, Catherine Ivers was a stunning young creature, a wild child, she’d said, of the Irish moors who had moved to Scotland due to familial circumstances that she refused to discuss. She looked the part, too: red hair, deep blue eyes, freckles splashed across her pale cheeks. Her voice reflected her muddled past as well: a Scottish brogue peppered with Irish when she got excited. She could be as sarcastic and roguish as any member of the Rooks, but often, it was only her eyes that betrayed her inner storm. For the most part, she spoke as softly as a high-bred lady.

When she’d been sent from the Glasgow Brotherhood to aid in reclaiming London from Starrick, it had shocked him and Evie both, as they hadn’t asked for any help. Greenie admitted later on that he had sent out letters as far as Dublin and it had been Glasgow that was to respond. Evie, grateful to have another woman around who seemed to be just as intelligent as she was, took to Catherine easily and they’d become fast friends. However, that friendship was disrupted when it turned out that Catherine found it a waste of time to plan out every last step in a mission like Evie did. Jacob found this incredibly amusing and tried to win her over to his side, at first mostly to irritate Evie.

She was terribly exciting, too. Jacob had developed a real interest in her when she’d bested him in a street race that had left a wheel on her carriage cracked and her horse spooked, but had overturned his own. Though thankfully, his steed came away with only a few cuts and bruises. She could be as brutal as she could be gentle – a well-balanced Assassin, for all intents and purposes – so Evie had turned out to be rather jealous when Jacob swooped in.

He’d had no ill intentions at first, but when she’d proved herself a formidable opponent – and not just at carriage races, but at climbing and fighting as well – he’d found himself irrefutably attracted to her. She seemed to return the sentiment, as they’d had several trysts, quick and quiet affairs in the dark of stairwells or abandoned homes with little in the way of tenderness. As time went on and the more he got to know her, however, Jacob had found himself seeking her company more, butterflies loose in his stomach every time she laughed or shot him a grin. He’d become hopeful when she’d begun to accept his offers to take walks with him at sunset, jittery as a schoolboy when she began to blush and turn away to hide her shy smiles. He’d come so close on several occasions to proclaiming his feelings to her, but they had been interrupted every time, usually by an irritable Evie.

Now, she was leaving London.

He followed her down the stairs of the apartment above Greenie’s curio shop, frantic. She jerked her trunk out of his grasp when he tried to grab it to keep her from leaving, almost sending it flying. She was quite determined. As it turned out, she’d become increasingly discontent with how both the Frye siblings were handling their respective situations: how Evie planned every step she took but refused to adapt if circumstances changed; how Jacob did nothing more than charge in like a bull while nothing more than luck and wits had kept him alive as he refused to consider the consequences of his actions. Trouble was, she had not made her grievances known until a few minutes before when she’d announced she was going back to Glasgow to rejoin her own Brotherhood.

“Catey, _wait!_” Jacob cried, painfully aware of Evie’s cold stare on his back from the top of the staircase but too busy trying to prevent Catherine’s departure to care much. But his words fell on deaf ears. A carriage, driven by a member of the Rooks who was trying to seem as though he wasn’t listening, was waiting outside. Jacob made to grab the trunk again, just to make Catherine turn around and speak to him, but she’d shoved it inside the open carriage door before he could. She whipped around violently when his hand landed on her shoulder, her hand raised to strike him, fury mingled with tears in her dark blue eyes. He was so startled by her expression that he had no choice but to back away a few steps, his hands up in surrender.

“Catey…” he began in a desperate voice.

“No, Mr. Frye!” she hissed. Jacob was stung by the use of his name like that – she hadn’t called him “Mr. Frye” since they’d met. Was this really the end? He needed her to bolster the gang and help take down Starrick. How could he do that without her? And even more than that, what would _he _do without her?

“Please don’t go,” he pleaded, feeling rather pathetic, adding against his better judgment, “I care for you, Catey, don’t you care for me?”

She opened her mouth to snap back, but no words came. Instead, she let out a frustrated sigh through her nose, turning away for a moment with her hands on her hips as though to steady herself. When she turned back, her expression had softened but now her eyes were full of pain.

“Of course I care for you, Jacob,” she murmured in a voice so soft, he could hardly hear her. “But I cannot stand by and watch as you and your sister sabotage yourselves and the Brotherhood with your selfishness. Not with so much at stake. I must go back to where I am needed.”  
“Catey, the Rooks need you! _I _need y-“

“Jacob, how can I possibly expect that you will respect me when you cannot respect your own family?”

Jacob was so taken aback by what Catherine had said that he had no response. He could only look on helplessly as she started to climb into the carriage, but in a last hopeless attempt to make her see reason, he grabbed her hand just as she was inside and tried to pull her towards him. She allowed him to, but only just enough so that her face was close to his. Her gaze was as hard as steel and brimming with anger again. When she spoke, however, her voice was choked with swallowed tears.

“If you can find a way to pull your head out of your own arse, I will be in Glasgow. Goodbye, Jacob.”

Now it was Jacob’s turn to choke back tears as she pulled her hand from his and closed the carriage door in his face. He wiped furiously at his eyes with the back of his hand as he watched the carriage merge into the crowd of traffic and turn the corner. He was suddenly boiling with anger. If Evie hadn’t interfered, if she hadn’t been as stubborn as an old mule about holding on to every word their bloody father had said, Catherine would have stayed! He was sure of it, and he meant to tell Evie so.

She was waiting for him at the top of the stairs with a smugly arched eyebrow. Before she could even open her mouth, Jacob started in on her.

“You!” he shouted, an accusatory finger pointed straight at her chest. “This is your bloody fault!”

There was nothing that made Evie lose her temper faster than blaming her for something she felt she had no part in, and it worked.

“_My_ fault?!” she cried incredulously, her eyes blazing. “Might I remind you, dear brother, that it was _you _that nearly collapsed England’s entire economy and it was _me _that had to clean up after you, just like every other bloody damn time you’ve gotten some half-cocked idea in your head! Like the Rooks! I-”

“Pardon me, _dear sister,_ but I clearly recall that you don’t seem to have a problem with _my_ Rooks when you need their help! And if you had gotten your nose out of your books and your head out of your arse, Starrick would be dead by now and Catey would have stayed!”

“Ah, so that’s what this is about, eh?” Evie sneered, “Jacob Frye is in love, but oh no, it must be Evie’s fault that he cocked it up and sent her running!”

For the first time since they were children, Jacob raised his hand against his sister, who steeled herself to strike him back. They were halted, however, by a body coming between them. It was Henry, who had been watching, mouth agape, from across the apartment’s sitting room, but the twins had been so focused on each other that they hadn’t n0oticed him. Henry made to grab Jacob’s hand to stop him from hitting Evie, but he jerked it away so forcefully that he made a dent in the wall behind him with his fist. Without even pausing to apologize, Jacob stalked off down the stairs and out the door, taking care to go the opposite direction that Catherine’s carriage had gone in search of a beer and a dark corner in which he could lick his wounds. His love was gone and he wanted to forget she had ever existed for a while.


	2. Proposal

Three weeks had passed since Jacob had watched Catherine’s carriage disappear around the corner from the curio shop. Many things had happened since then. He and Evie had reconciled, had killed Starrick, and restored the Piece of Eden to where it belonged. The Brotherhood had been fully re-established in London. Evie and Henry were now engaged to be married. And now the three of them were on a train bound for Glasgow.

Jacob pondered on everything that happened in the past weeks and how, despite almost losing his life, even facing Starrick hadn’t rendered him as nervous as he was right then. Though his feelings had been complicated by the kiss he had shared with Roth and several unintended but still rather exciting flirtations with Freddie, he had found that his thoughts still turned to Catherine at night when he was alone. Though he had toyed with the idea of Roth (until his end) or Freddie, his love for Catherine remained steadfast. He was going to Glasgow to ask for her hand.

Evie and Henry were at the window of their private car, oohing and aahing at the beautiful scenery, but Jacob had done nothing for the past two days but pace like a caged tiger. He’d spent a small fortune at a flower vendor the day before when the train had stopped in Liverpool – Evie had suggested he pick out a bouquet of flowers to convey the message he intended to deliver to Catherine. After nearly an hour of debating and bickering, they’d settled on a branch of blackberry bramble for remorse, myrtle and blue violets for love, red columbine to convey his nervousness, a branch of wallflower for “fidelity in adversity,” and some rosebuds as a confession of devotion for good measure, all tied with a blue silk ribbon. Jacob thought the bouquet looked horribly messy, but Evie insisted it was the right thing to do.

The bouquet lay forgotten for the moment on the seat next to Evie, who still had her face pressed to the window next to Henry’s. The train’s whistle was sounding its high-pitched wail to indicate that it was nearing a station – they’d arrived in Glasgow. All of a sudden, Jacob’s palms began to sweat. He picked up the bouquet in shaking hands, following his companions in a nervous haze. What if Catherine rejected him? What if she declined to see him at all? After all he’d been through to set things right and win her back, he wasn’t sure he could take it.

The trio rented a carriage and Henry volunteered to drive. Evie took Jacob’s anxious silence as a desire to be alone, so she sat in the driver’s seat with her fiancé and left her brother alone to sit inside the carriage. He rather wished she’d decided to sit with him, just to keep his mind off of the inevitable. He picked at the already withering leaves on the bouquet to give himself something to do. The city of Glasgow eventually turned into rolling moors. The late September sun cast red and gold on already changing leaves. He could hear Evie and Henry admiring the landscape and burned with jealousy…or was it anxiety? They had what he hoped to get, at any rate, though he supposed he was glad that they had agreed to come with him on this fool’s errand. He wasn’t sure he would have had the courage to go through with it had they declined.

The main bureau of the Glasgow Brotherhood sat a good two miles outside the city – it looked rather like Crawley, Jacob mused. Surrounded by the industry that trailed out of the city, the compound itself was pastorally picturesque, with clusters of houses sharing a few chicken coops, pig sties, and a small stable, surrounded by neighbors that were sympathetic to their cause in order to disguise them from any prying Templar eyes. As Henry halted their carriage outside of what looked to be the main house, the door of this house opened and out stepped a rather stately older man, who introduced himself without a smile as Amos McCullough, the Master in charge of the Glasgow Brotherhood. He shook each of their hands, still unsmiling, and his hard gaze scraped its way across Jacob’s face when it was his turn. Jacob felt a pang of paranoia – had Catherine mentioned him to her master when she’d arrived back in Scotland? What had she said? Henry’s letter announcing their arrival hadn’t made any mention of the reason behind their visit. Was it possible that McCullough knew somehow?

McCullough’s voice was deep and quiet and he moved slowly and deliberately, in a way that made it clear that, though Henry had sent that letter a week ago, he was highly suspicious of their presence. Jacob felt uneasy. Catherine had told him of her Master’s temperament and yet, because of their prior history, she had held him in the highest esteem. He could feel McCullough’s eyes linger on him the most as the older man showed them around the compound. Despite his nerves, he hoped Catherine would appear, just to take those piercing gray eyes off him.

His wish was granted a handful of minutes later. A pair of riders crested a hill and came cantering towards them, one on a stocky bay gelding and the other on a lanky dapple gray mare that pitched and rolled and strained at its bit. Jacob’s heart leapt into his throat when he saw Catherine, with her shock of red hair, was riding the gray. She was too busy trying to keep her horse from unseating her and scolding her companion for laughing to notice there were visitors. The look of utter shock on her face when she did manage to pull up her mount near them was enough to make Jacob forget his nerves for a moment, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards. Catherine’s companion, a pretty young thing with straw-yellow hair and green eyes, grinned mischievously, her eyes darting back and forth across the awkward scene.

McCullough spoke to the companion, but Jacob was focused only on Catherine. It seemed she could only stare; she hadn’t even dismounted her horse, which was still stamping impatiently, her cheeks blazing red. At one point, the blonde girl began leading her horse towards the stables, which snapped Catherine out of her daze and she hurriedly followed suit, taking care to hide her face behind her horse’s neck.

McCullough made to follow them, but Henry clapped him on the back and began leading him away, speaking very loudly and awkwardly about how well the Brotherhood seemed to be doing in Scotland. Jacob began to tail them, but Evie shooed him away with a knowing look. Oh, bless her, they’d planned this…

“Thank you,” Jacob mouthed before he ducked into the stables.

The darkness and smell of hay and horses was comfortingly familiar to him. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, but his heart began pounding again when he saw the hind end of Catherine’s gray mare at the end of the aisle way. He felt a bit pathetic feeling so nervous. Hadn’t he defeated the greatest Templar the entire nation of Britain had known since Reginald Birch? Then again, dealing with Templars was easy: you killed them. Proposing marriage to a woman that had firmly rejected him, it turned out, was on an entirely different plane.

With a deep breath, he steeled himself, adopting what he hoped was a suave grin, before striding down the aisle. He opened his mouth to say something debonair but instantly deflated when he saw that it was the blonde girl, not Catherine, that was grooming the gray horse. The girl, who introduced herself in a spritely voice as Rebecca, told him that Catherine had gone to the edge of the nearby woods. When asked where exactly and why, she simply shrugged her shoulders, a coy smile curving her thin lips.

“I dunnae wot’s got into her,” Rebecca added in a sing-song sort of voice, plainly attempting to appear nonchalant but making it clear that she was enjoying what was unfolding around her. Jacob wasn’t entirely sure she was to be trusted, but decided it ultimately didn’t matter.

Another deep breath. A venture back out into the sunlight. Catherine hadn’t gone far. There she stood at the edge of the woods, just like Rebecca had said, encased in a halo of light from the dying sun. Three weeks ago, he would have scoffed at the idea of angels, but after seeing the power of the Piece of Eden and looking at her there, how could he be certain that they weren’t real? It made him feel a bit better that she seemed to be boiling with anxiety like he was – she was chewing on her lower lip and had her fists clenched in the hem of her cape. Any chance of charming his way through the situation forgotten, he approached her gingerly, like he was afraid to startle her and cause her to run off. It hit him very suddenly when he was mere steps from her that, she hadn’t thought he’d actually come to Glasgow, even though she’d told him to if he’d managed to make things right. He felt rather stung at the thought – did she really think so little of his character? Then again, with everything that had happened, he supposed he deserved at least a little doubt.

Unable to think of anything clever to say, he held out the bouquet without a word. The flowers had gotten a bit crushed in his shaking grip. Catherine took it without comment. Jacob thought he saw a flicker of an amused smile grace her perfect lips. Nerves got the better of him, and he blurted out that the Queen had inducted him into the Order of the Sacred Garter before he remembered what he was doing and started to launch into an explanation of what each flower meant.

“Jacob,” she interrupted, looking skeptical, “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re going on about.”

His injured ego forgotten, Jacob let out a bright and full laugh. Of course she wouldn’t have a clue… While the language of flowers had won over Evie’s heart, Catherine had never taken the time to learn; he distinctly remembered a day when Evie had asked her to study with her and Catherine had instead taken up Jacob on an offer of a carriage race. She’d found the flowers pretty and enjoyed looking at them, but hadn’t the patience to learn how to hold a conversation with them, finding it strange that Evie and Henry had taken that up as a hobby instead of simply speaking their minds. She was giving him a weak, embarrassed grin as she lifted the bouquet to her nose, almost pricking herself with the blackberry bramble.

“Who thought this was a good idea?!” she exclaimed as she rubbed at her nose with mock indignation. Jacob laughed again, relieved that the mood had relaxed, and explained that his sister was now engaged and, since that was how she’d been proposed to, that she’d insisted that flower language was the way to go about it.

“Of course,” Catherine muttered as she rolled her eyes, pausing for a moment before tossing the bouquet aside. Jacob grinned down at her as he offered her his arm. Though Evie would have been very unhappy to hear the way they were speaking about her, it was a welcome distraction from the inevitable.

There were still late sparrows and jays chirping in the changing leaves as they walked down a path through the trees. A pregnant silence stretched between them. Jacob noticed in this silence that there was dirt smudged across Catherine’s cheek. Without even really thinking about it, he reached up to rub it away when she turned suddenly towards him, her expression desperate. He sheepishly put his hand down, but his heart sank when he heard what she had to say.

“Jacob, I know why you’ve come. And I can’t.”

“What? B-but…but why?”

She balled her hands up into the hem of her cloak again as she began to chew on her bottom lip. He awaited her answer with baited breath, hoping beyond hope once more that he hadn’t traveled all that way just to be rejected. After another pause, she took his hand and led him to the edge of a creek that ran nearby, sitting down on a mossy rock and beckoning him to do the same. Confused and rather hurt, he watched her carefully. She seemed anxious: she curled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on her arms, her brow furrowed as she refused to look at him.

He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could utter a word, she launched into the tale of her origins, a story that she’d flat out refused to tell him before. She hardly left a pause between words in a way that suggested that if she stopped, she would never start again. He listened very carefully, hardly daring to move. Her parents had been British dignitaries in Ireland, where she was born. They were Templars, as it were, and they’d been placed there by the Grand Master to control the masses during the potato famine. She’d grown up with stories of the Templar and Assassin wars and how the Assassins wanted nothing but chaos. But even as a young girl, she hadn’t understood how people who simply wanted freedom could be as bad as her father had said.

Her mother wanted her to stay put within the estate walls and learn to be a proper lady, but her older brother, Edward, spirited her away on many occasions, teaching her to hunt and fish and climb. But her brother was murdered when she was fourteen. By whom, they never found out. She’d never been terribly fond of her father, but the death of her brother had brought something out of him that had terrified her to her very core.

One night, he had dragged Catherine out of her bed, a sack full of her cat, Nora’s, kittens screaming in his fist. At this point, Catherine’s voice was thick with tears as she recounted how her father had pulled her into the yard, drew his pistol, going on about teaching her that taking a life was easy, and ended the kittens’ lives. Her screams were ignored and he’d gone back into the house without another word. From that moment on, she had known that her father was an evil man. When she was sure he was back in his bedroom, she’d quietly buried the kittens, gathered up a distraught Nora, and ran into the forest surrounding the estate, unsure of what else to do or where to go. It had been summer at the time, so living in the woods like her brother had taught her hadn’t been so difficult, and there she stayed for nearly a week. But on the last day, a hawk had killed Nora, and Catherine had had no choice but to make her way back home.

The worst part, she said, was the fact that her mother scolded her for overreacting, acting as though her father had done nothing wrong. She’d stayed in her home, boiling inside as she’d slowly stashed away money she’d pinched from her mother’s purse. She ran away two years later, around her sixteenth birthday, when talk of marrying her off began to snake its way through the house. She’d made it as far as Glasgow before the money she’d stolen ran out. When she’d gotten desperate enough to start selling herself on the street, she’d met with a handful of other prostitutes, who had happened to be Assassins, and they’d taken her in to their Order. McCullough had even been the one to end her father’s reign of terror over the Irish.

“So you see,” she said, almost pleadingly, “I can’t marry you.”

“Why?” Jacob demanded, finding it frustratingly ironic that the woman that had so firmly rebuffed him before was so full of self-doubt now. “Because your parents were Templar?”

“Yes,” she responded weakly. “You have so much to give and I deserve none of it. I’m hardly pure, I haven’t a dowry-”

Jacob slid from his rock to kneel at the base of hers, taking her hands in his. “I don’t care about any of that,” he whispered through a smile. “Catey, please! I want to spend my life with you!”

A blush had spread across her cheeks, as had a grin that she was trying very hard to hide. Still she persisted.

“I can’t…. McCullough would never allow it.”

Jacob was ready for this.

“I don’t care what that smug old bastard says, Catey. If you’ll be mine, it won’t matter.”

He could see her resolve crumbling, could see the gears turning in her head as she mulled over her options. He was fairly certain she wanted to say yes, but her shame over her upbringing and her desire not to upset her master were giving her pause, though she’d mentioned many a-time that he was a hard man to live under…

“Are you sure, Jacob?” She was giving him a piercing stare from under hair that had fallen loose from her bun, burning red in the dying sunlight.

“More than anything,” he whispered. That familiar pregnant pause fell between them. Tension bloomed in his belly. _C’mon, Catey, please…_

She bit her lip…and nodded, smiling at him shyly. The tension in Jacob’s belly burst and he cupped his hands around her face and kissed her with everything he had. He tasted salt – she was crying. Concerned and confused, he broke the kiss only to see that she was smiling. He returned her smile two-fold and kissed her again.


	3. Fight

They remained like that for quite some time, alternating holding each other and kissing, their time peppered with shy giggles. The sun had nearly disappeared by the time Catey realized what it would look like to everyone else to come back to the compound after so much time alone. Jacob couldn’t have cared less and wanted to stay where they were with her in his arms, but Catey insisted they go back. He found it almost amusing, how this woman that had pulled him by his collar into the darkness of an abandoned home for their first tryst was so afraid of what her master and friends would think of her spending time alone with a man.

Still, it was nice to walk with her, fingers intertwined, in the deepening twilight. Colors seemed deeper, the sound of rustling leaves and the babbling brook they’d left even seemed jollier. The world seemed to be celebrating with them. He was overjoyed.

Catey’s smile faded, however, the closer they came to the compound. Just before they stepped into the light pooled in the grass by the lanterns hung outside the main house, she stopped dead in her tracks. She was chewing on her lip again.

“What’s wrong?” Jacob asked, the blissful warmth he felt in his soul keeping him from realizing…

Oh dear…

McCullough. Of course.

The door to the main house opened with a snap and they both jumped. Thankfully, it was Evie that stood in the doorway. She beckoned them closer.

“Well?” she whispered urgently, glancing back and forth between them. Catey looked shocked, but Jacob nodded. An enormous smile broke out across Evie’s face just before she launched herself at her brother to embrace him and then to Catey. Jacob grinned at his new fiancée’s dazed expression over Evie’s head. His sister then grabbed both their hands and dragged them inside to the kitchen.

There were two long tables that took up most of the length of the room and each was packed with people. Most seemed to be Assassins, in their somberly practical dress, but there were children and those that seemed to be village-folk mixed in as well. It seemed they’d missed supper. The room was alive with chatter of the following day’s Samhain celebration, of cows that were to be slaughtered, the feast to be prepared, and the wood for the bonfires to be collected.

Evie made a beeline for Henry, who was leaning up against a wall across the room, and began whispering fervently to him. Henry’s eyes lit up, but when Jacob made to move towards them, he found that Catey was no longer at his side. Looking around, he caught sight of her shock of red hair now sitting down amongst a gaggle of women her age, who were twittering and gossiping like sparrows. His heart sank when he noticed that McCullough was seated at the head of that table, his gray gaze unwavering from Catey’s face. She seemed determined not to notice him; her own gaze remained fixed on the table as she pushed food around on a plate the girl next to her hadn’t finished with an abandoned spoon.

Evie rushed over, whispering in his ear that it was best to leave them be for now, and pulled him over to the other table, where townsfolk pushed half a loaf of bread and some jam and butter at them with cheery smiles. Evie and Henry asked polite questions about the next night’s celebration. It was evidently a celebration of the harvest and to expel evil spirits that might want to settle in over the winter, but Jacob only half listened as he kept glancing over in Catey’s direction. He could hardly see her over the sea of heads between them. She seemed to be laughing and joking with two friends, but he wasn’t sure how much of this was an act.

It wasn’t long before the tables were cleared and people were slowly filing out of the kitchen to finish evening chores. Catey was one of the last to leave. Jacob made to follow her, even as Evie tried to grab his hand to stop him, but he noticed as he came closer to her that, though her expression was neutral, her lips were a tight, thin line. She fixed him with a hard stare and shook her head nearly imperceptibly. At that moment, Jacob could feel McCullough’s glare on him. Catey mouthed, “Tomorrow,” at him and turned to leave. His heart sank. Why tomorrow? Why was she so afraid to be truthful with her Master?

He, Evie, and Henry slept in the loft above the stables. Or rather, Evie and Henry did. Jacob lay awake, sleeping only fitfully. His thoughts were too occupied with Catey. She was…different here in Scotland. The Catey he had met and fallen in love with in London was fearless and impatient. The Catey he had found in Glasgow was timid and meek. How could this possibly be the same person? His heart began to pound at the thought that she would change her mind on his proposal because McCullough was breathing down her neck. He decided that if he had to steal her away in the middle of the night to get the real Catey back, then so be it.

Morning came and with it, preparation for the festivities later that evening. Even he, Evie, and Henry were not exempt from pitching in. Evie was roped into helping with the cooking, while Jacob and Henry were tasked with helping round up cattle, border collies circling their heels. Before they knew it, the sun had set, and they were in a field amongst a crowd of people in various states of undress. Jacob and Henry had been made to be bare-chested, though at least they were allowed to keep their trousers and boots; poor Evie was shivering next to them in a cotton night shift. All three of them had been painted with ash across their faces and chests by a round woman with a jolly laugh.

Samhain was in full swing now, the air filled with smoke and the sound of drums, fiddles, and singing voices. Two raging bonfires sat in the middle of the field and a line of people holding cows and horses took turns running their livestock between the two fires in an act meant to ward off evil spirits for the coming year; others went through the crowds and passed out food; still others danced, sang, or played various instruments. Jacob had been searching for Catey from his spot at the bottom of a hill nearby to the fires, and aside from a glimpse of her as she rode her gray mare between the flames at a breakneck gallop, he hadn’t seen her at all.

Then suddenly, she was beside him, dressed in a night shift similar to Evie’s with ash spread liberally across her forehead and chest. A wide, though obviously forced, smile was spread across her face. She was pulling him and Evie towards the crowd with Henry trailing behind, exclaiming in a strained voice that the dancing was about to start. Jacob couldn’t help but smile a little – he couldn’t picture Catey dancing to save his life, much less being excited about it. She proved him very wrong, though. She released his hand at the edge of a crowd that had formed around a smaller bonfire, where two men with drums and two with fiddles sat. When they noticed that Catey was in the middle of the circle, several people in the crowd cheered. Five other young women joined her, their hair long and loose down their backs, taking their places around the edge of the fire with their backs to the flames.

One of the girls nodded at the drummers, and they began to pound out a beat, which sounded to Jacob, silly though it sounded, like the rushing of a river. Several women’s voices accompanied the beat. Soon after, the fiddles began, and the women surrounding the fire bounced up high onto their toes, arching their arms up over their heads, twisting and weaving in complex steps. Jacob learned from half-hearted eavesdropping on Henry and a village woman that this dance was meant to symbolize the departure and return of summer birds. Jacob’s heart swelled as he watched Catey’s smile turn genuine as she leapt and turned, slapping hands in rhythm with the other women as they passed each other. She was back to the old Catey, the one he’d fallen in love with…

All too soon, the song was over, the crowd was cheering, and Jacob saw that Catey was walking purposefully towards him, a determined gleam in her eye. The next thing he knew, she had wrapped her arms around his neck and was kissing him hard. He had never been so acutely aware of so many eyes on him. Several people cheered and egged Catey on, and others hadn’t noticed, either too drunk or too distracted to care much. Others simply stared, unsure of how to react. However, Jacob felt McCullough’s cold gaze settle on them like a knife on his skin.

This was it. Catey was severing her ties to her old life, to timidity. To be so bold in her advances was the surest statement anyone could hope to get. Though Jacob felt relief that she had made this choice, a pool of dread opened up in his chest – the inevitable confrontation that he had hoped could be avoided was about to fall like an ax on his head. Out of the corner of his eye, Jacob could see the old man slip away from the crowd back up towards the compound. Catey broke the kiss, that familiar mischievous fire back in her eyes.

“Do you think we can do this?” she asked him in hushed tones. For a moment, as he looked into her eyes, the world only consisted of her… The wild, daring glimmer in her eyes as she grinned like a cat bolstered his courage. Yes. Yes, they could.

He gave her a deep kiss as an answer, grinning when they were met with more cheers. By the time he broke the kiss, Catey was pulling him by the hand up the hill towards the compound, almost skipping in her joy. He barely had time to hear his sister shouting after him that she and Henry would ready the carriage and their things. However, the further from the noise of the crowd they got, the slower Catey walked, and the more her smile faded. A faint sheen of sweat had broken out over her brow and Jacob was sure it didn’t have much to do with the revelry. But her expression was steely – she was going to go through with this regardless.

The inside of the main house was cloaked in a darkness so heavy it felt difficult to breathe. Only one room, down at the end of a long hallway on the first floor, had had its lantern lit: McCullough’s meeting room, Catey whispered. Jacob was suddenly acutely aware of how very naked he and Catey were – he had hardly pictured the confrontation occurring while they were dressed in little else besides undergarments. Though he would have preferred to be clothed, he could hardly tell his fiancée to stop, lest she never pluck up the courage again.

He followed her lead – she took cautious, quiet steps down the hallway, treading so lightly on the floorboards that they hardly made a sound. Her gaze was fixed on the door at the end of the hall. It was so quiet in the house; Jacob could hear that her breath had quickened by the time they had reached that fateful door. She was chewing on her lip once more. He squeezed her hand to give her courage, and she squeezed back weakly before she finally pushed open the door.

The inside of McCullough’s meeting place was dim, but Jacob could make out his shape at the head of a long table at the opposite end of the room.

“_Rinn thu e a-nis_…” came McCullough’s voice from the darkness, soft and sinister. Jacob could feel Catey tense up beside him, and, though he had no idea what McCullough had said, he could almost feel her bristle. In the hopes of diffusing the situation, he stepped between them.

“Now, let’s everyone speak a language we all understand, eh?” he said with a chuckle. He quickly discovered that that was the wrong move. McCullough brought his fist down on the table in front of him, and the resounding crack echoed throughout the room, causing both Jacob and Catey to jump.

“I’ll not allow it,” McCullough growled through gritted teeth. He had stood up out of his chair and for the first time, Jacob could truly appreciate exactly how intimidating the other man was. In his youth, he must have been quite a force to be reckoned with. But anger was rising steadily in his own throat.

“Allow what, sir?” Jacob feigned innocence, reveling in the rising tension in the room. He saw Catey was still as stone when he glanced briefly over his shoulder, her lips a tight line and her eyes fixed on McCullough.

“Your marriage,” McCullough spat, “to one of my finest Assassins.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Jacob replied, bouncing on the balls of his feet in mock ignorance, “but as I didn’t ask _you_ to marry me, is that not her choice?”

“It is not!” McCullough roared, his fist coming down on the tabletop again. “She belongs to this Brotherhood and I’ll not allow her to be spirited away by some filthy mongrel!”

Jacob only offered a smug smile in reply, though his gaze was cold and unforgiving: McCullough knew he was going to lose Catey. He could weather those insults until the day he died. What he didn’t expect was what the old man said next.

“You know she was a whore, don’t you, before I was kind enough to take her in? She sold herself on the streets like a dog! She owes me her presence here for saving her from such sinful disgrace. I’ll not allow her to be married when she is tainted!”

Jacob’s mouth nearly hung open in shock. Catey had told him on more than one occasion that McCullough was often terrible to live under, though she had never mentioned why, and Jacob now understood what exactly she’d meant. He valued her for her skill, but reviled her for her impurity. This only served to strengthen Jacob’s anger, disgusted as he was that McCullough refused to see the asset Catey was to him, could only see what had been done to her. He snorted a short laugh in response.

“I don’t care about any of that, you pompous old bat. If she’ll have me, that’s all that m-“

Before Jacob could finish, Catey had pushed her way in front of him. Even in the dim light of the lantern, he could tell she was shaking.

“How dare you?” she snarled. Her hands had curled into fists. Despite his own anger, Jacob swelled with pride. His Catey, the impulsive, quick-to-anger woman he’d met and loved in London, was standing in front of him again.

“After all the years of service I gave you,” Catey continued, her voice quiet and dangerous, “after all that I’ve done for this Brotherhood, this is how you speak about me?

“I’m finished here, Amos.”

With that, Catey turned on her heel and made to walk out of the room, grabbing Jacob’s hand to pull him along too. Suddenly, he’d been pushed forward, and Catey had been pulled out of his grip. In the darkness, it was difficult to tell what was going on, but he could hear the sounds of a scuffle. A cry of pain shattered the quiet, but as he rushed forward to help Catey, he found that it wasn’t her that needed his help. She’d twisted McCullough’s arm behind his back.

“If you ever touch me or come near me again, old man,” she spat, “I’ll make sure it’s the last thing you ever do. To hell with you and your ancient views. You are not fit to be Master here.”

Jacob couldn’t help the bark of laughter that left his lips as he ran out into the night after Catey. When she stopped on the crest of a hill, he bounded over to her, wanting to slap her on the back and praise her for her bravery, for finally standing up to her Master, only to find that she had her hand to her mouth to stop herself from crying. Samhain was still in full swing, and the light from the fires highlighted the gray streaks of tears that had traced their way down her face. All of sudden, she was on her knees, pounding her fist into the grass as her whole body was wracked with sobs.

“How could he?!” she cried into the darkness as Jacob knelt next to her. “How could he say those things about me, when I’ve given him years of my life?!”

“It’s over now, Catey,” Jacob soothed, his hand on her back, “You never have to see him again. I promise I’ll do what I can to make you happy.”

A whistle cut through the darkness. It was Evie, beckoning them towards the stables. The pinpricks of lantern light off in the distance and the sound of whinnying horses indicated that they’d prepared the carriage already. Jacob helped Catey to her feet.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked her. Even though she was having trouble holding back her tears now, she gave him a weak smile and nodded. His heart swelled again as he took her by the hand and they ran across the field towards their waiting carriage. 


End file.
